search and seizure

MN town requires warrantless searches of rental properties

The city of Red Wing, Minn. is enforcing a rental property inspection law that requires landlords and tenants to open their doors and submit to inspections of their private property in order for the landlord to receive a license to rent the property. Red Wing’s rental inspection program has been in place for five years. During that time, inspectors have searched the rental homes of hundreds of residents, going into their closets, looking under their beds, and inspecting their bathroom cabinets.

Denver cops won't be charged after severely beating motorist

A 23-year-old man who was beaten by three Denver police officers after he questioned their authority to search the trunk of his car says the Justice Department has decided not to charge any of the officers with civil-rights violations stemming from the case. Alexander Landau tells The Denver Post that representatives of the department and the FBI told him Friday there was insufficient evidence to bring federal charges.

Man Arrested for Spitting on Sidewalk

Insomniac Joseph Stoiber, 29, was walking in his neighborhood when he couldn't sleep at 2:30 a.m. May 30, talking to his friend on the phone about baseball. Lakeland police Officer Tyler Anderson saw him in the community near Florida Southern College and stopped him. After asking Stoiber what he was doing, Anderson asked to pat him down. Stoiber said no. Seeing a bulge in Stoiber's pocket, Anderson began patting him down anyway. During the search, Stoiber, who had been chewing tobacco, spit the accumulated saliva on the grass or sidewalk. That's been against the law in Lakeland since 1944.

$12k in damage to car looking for drugs, none found

When Pompton Lakes police seized Darren Richardson’s car on a rainy September afternoon, they told him it was headed for an impound lot. When they returned it three weeks later, he says, the 2004 BMW belonged in a junk yard. According to police reports, the damage to the black BMW 325i came in the aftermath of a traffic stop during which officers detected a "strong odor of raw marijuana" inside the vehicle. Searching for a cache of drugs, members of three different police agencies and a detective from a federal drug task force spent two days tearing the car apart, the reports said.